Not Everything that Counts can be Counted

Here’s the paradox: not-for-profits need clarity to move forward, but they also need adaptability to ensure ruthless focus on the impacts that matter. A rigid goal might give us a clear path today but trap us tomorrow.

Take climate action. If an organisation sets a goal of planting one million trees, it sounds great—until we realise the wrong species were planted, or they weren’t maintained, or the real problem was soil degradation. A focus on “counting” trees can distract from what really matters: regenerating ecosystems. It’s Goodhart’s Law - when the measure becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure.

At 10x10 HQ, alongside our new brand and impact strategy, we’re setting a 10-year Big Hairy Audacious Goal. The kind of goal that should be clear, ambitious and measurable; but conflicts with the idea that not everything that counts can be counted.

In complex adaptive systems, where actions have non-linear effects, goal setting is more like defining a sense of direction than hitting a target. For the ecosystem analogy, you can measure tree growth, but can you measure the health and resilience of an entire forest? You can track donations, but how do you quantify the ripple effects of people contributing more in their communities?

It begs the question, if we have a clear and ambitious direction, do we still need a BHAG?

Where we landed was yes, and here’s why.

• Our vision sets a clear direction: An Australia where the people solving our toughest social problems have every chance to succeed.
• We have a map of how to get there: Our Theory of Change and impact framework define our target outcomes, and we have a set of aligned indicators that serve as proxies for our success.
• We have a route planned out: Our near-term organisational strategic plan has clear initiatives and targets aligned to the impact framework.
• We’re prepared to adjust to changing conditions: We manage our impact through organisational processes towards our targets. Our new spotlight feature has a focus on storytelling, for changes that can’t be measured but can be observed and described.
• We’re focused on learning: In our review processes, we ask, what are we trying to understand in the next 12 months? Has anything actually changed? We adapt our strategy over time in line with our vision as new information and learning emerges.

But there’s one question this impact management framework doesn’t answer.

How do we know if the short-term targets we are setting are sufficiently ambitious?

Our strategic planning processes start from where the world is today. We’re focused on making sense of the information we have from feedback, experience surveys and interviews, and using this to create an informed plan. This approach makes sense in a complex system, but also presents a biasing risk; the risk of anchoring to current-state. As a counter-balance, an ambitious long-term target harnesses anchoring bias for positive effects, as a cross-reference to ensure that our short-term targets are sufficiently ambitious.

For 10x10, this is the question that a BHAG solves.

So, we’ll aim high. With the understanding that the measures and their targets are only proxies for the real value - An Australia where the people solving our toughest social problems have every chance to succeed.

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